Well I attended my first class of Wine Sensory 1. This is part of a credited course for a Master Wine Taster certification run by Niagara College. The classes are held at Viewpointe Estate Winery right here in Essex County.
Some thoughts on the first class:
Very interesting and a good first night. The instructor is John Carnahan. He has a very easy going teaching style that I liked. John works for the LCBO and I recall seeing him at the Round House several years ago. I had a few questions about some wines I wanted to buy and he was very helpful. He knows his stuff and is the perfect teacher for such a course.
Some interesting wines were tasted. (not drank). Let me tell you that drinking wine is a lot easy than tasting it. While I believe I have a good sense of tastes, tasting involves spitting the wine out after tasting, this is something I am going to have to get used to doing.
About the wines we tasted. John obviously wanted us to experiences the four main taste on the tongue (sweet, sour, saltly/ mineral, and bitter). Baby steps …. a good way to start as we can’t run until we can walk. Two Sauvignon Blancs, one from France and one from New Zealand were tasted. Very interesting how the one from France had a pronounced mineral taste while the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc had a sweet / gooseberry taste. I thought the taste was a bit more citrus than gooseberry but then I haven’t tasted gooseberry in quite some time so citrus was the taste that hit me.
The two Sauvignon Blancs were:
JEAN-MICHEL SORBE QUINCY 2008, Price: $ 18.95 and SAINT CLAIR SAUVIGNON BLANC 2009, Price: $16.95.
There was also some red Italian wine (can’t remember what it was) but it was one bitter pill.
Looking at the class schedule I see that I will need to miss one of the classes over March break as I already have a vacation booked with my family in Florida that week.
The course looks like it is going to be a challenge and I am ready for it.
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